Do Teachers Get Student Loan Forgiveness: PSLF, TLF, and Perkins

Teachers can get federal student loan forgiveness through three main programs: Teacher Loan Forgiveness cancels up to $17,500 after five years in a low-income school, Public Service Loan Forgiveness wipes out any remaining Direct Loan balance after 120 qualifying payments, and Federal Perkins Loan cancellation can erase up to 100% of an eligible Perkins balance over five years of qualifying service. Each program has its own rules about which loans qualify and what counts as qualifying teaching, and the same years of service cannot be claimed under both Teacher Loan Forgiveness and PSLF.

Teacher Loan Forgiveness: Up to $17,500 After Five Years

Teacher Loan Forgiveness pays off up to $17,500 of your federal student loans after five consecutive years of full-time teaching in a qualifying school.¹ The school must appear in the Teacher Cancellation Low Income (TCLI) Directory for each year you claim.² At least one of the five years must have taken place after the 1997–1998 academic year.

What you get depends on what you teach. Highly qualified secondary math or science teachers, and highly qualified special education teachers at any grade level, can receive up to $17,500. Every other full-time teacher who meets the five-year service requirement, holds full state certification, and has at least a bachelor’s degree can receive up to $5,000.¹

Only Direct Subsidized and Unsubsidized Loans and Subsidized and Unsubsidized Federal Stafford Loans qualify. If you consolidated those loans into a Direct Consolidation Loan or Federal Consolidation Loan, the portion that paid off qualifying loans can still be forgiven. You also cannot have had an outstanding Direct Loan or FFEL balance on October 1, 1998, or on the date you first borrowed after that date.³

The Five Consecutive Years Rule

The five years must be back to back, but the count does not restart for certain protected absences. A partial year counts as full if you finished at least half the academic year and your employer treated your contract as fulfilled for salary, tenure, and retirement purposes. Qualifying reasons for an incomplete year include a condition covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act, a call to active military duty of more than 30 days, or a return to postsecondary study directly related to your teaching role.³ You have to resume qualifying teaching by the start of the next regular academic year.

If your school is removed from the TCLI Directory partway through your service, the years you already completed there still count. You do not have to move schools or start over. Check the directory annually so you know where you stand.

Public Service Loan Forgiveness for Teachers

Public Service Loan Forgiveness cancels any remaining Direct Loan balance after 120 qualifying monthly payments — about ten years — while you work full-time for a qualifying public service employer.⁴ Government employers at every level qualify, along with 501(c)(3) nonprofits. Public school districts are government entities, so most public school teachers meet the employer test automatically.

Only Direct Loans qualify. Older FFEL or Perkins loans have to be consolidated into a Direct Consolidation Loan first, and payments made before consolidation do not carry over to the new loan.

Which Payments Count

A payment counts if you make it under an income-driven repayment plan, the 10-year standard repayment plan, or any plan where your monthly amount matches or exceeds what the 10-year standard would require.⁴ In practice, 120 payments on the 10-year standard plan will pay off the loan with nothing left to forgive. That’s why teachers pursuing PSLF almost always enroll in an income-driven plan: the lower monthly payment leaves a balance that gets canceled at month 120.

Full-Time Rules for Teachers

Full-time means averaging at least 30 hours per week. Teachers on contracts of at least eight months in a 12-month period — the standard academic-year arrangement — are treated as full-time for the entire year, including summer.⁴ If you work part-time at two or more qualifying employers, hours combine to reach 30.

Choosing Between Teacher Loan Forgiveness and PSLF

You cannot use the same years of teaching service for both programs. If you claim Teacher Loan Forgiveness for years one through five, those years do not count toward the 120 payments needed for PSLF. The choice is whether to take a smaller amount sooner or let all your years count toward full balance cancellation later. For teachers carrying high balances, complete forgiveness after ten years usually delivers more relief than $5,000 or $17,500 after five.

Perkins Loan Cancellation for Teachers

Federal Perkins Loans have their own cancellation track that can erase up to 100% of the loan over five years of qualifying teaching.⁵ You qualify if you teach full-time at a public or nonprofit elementary or secondary school and either serve in a low-income school or specialize in a shortage field such as math, science, foreign languages, bilingual education, or special education.

Cancellation happens in yearly increments, and the interest that accrued for that year is canceled with the principal:

Years 1 and 2: 15% of the original principal each year.
Years 3 and 4: 20% of the original principal each year.
Year 5: 30% of the original principal.⁵

The Perkins program stopped issuing new loans after September 30, 2017, with final disbursements allowed through June 30, 2018.⁶ If you still have a Perkins balance from before that cutoff, the cancellation benefit is still available. Requests go through the school that made the loan or its designated servicer, not a federal loan servicer.

The TEACH Grant Is Not Forgiveness

The TEACH Grant is worth mentioning because teachers often confuse it with a forgiveness program, and the mistake is expensive. A TEACH Grant converts into a Direct Unsubsidized Loan, with interest backdated to the original disbursement, if you do not complete four years of full-time teaching in a high-need field at a low-income school within eight years of leaving the program that awarded the grant.⁷

Conversion happens if you decide not to teach, teach outside a high-need field, teach at a school that does not qualify as low-income, or miss the annual paperwork. To keep the grant from turning into debt, submit a TEACH Grant certification form signed by your school’s chief administrative officer for each of the four qualifying years.⁸ Missing one annual certification can convert the entire grant.

Repayment Plans in 2026 and What Changed

If you are pursuing PSLF, your repayment plan drives how much gets forgiven, because lower monthly payments leave a larger balance for cancellation at month 120. As of 2026, three income-driven plans remain available for loans first disbursed before July 1, 2026: Income-Based Repayment (IBR), Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR), and Pay As You Earn (PAYE).⁹

The SAVE plan is no longer accepting new enrollees. Borrowers who were in SAVE have been placed in a general forbearance during which interest accrues and no credit is earned toward PSLF or income-driven forgiveness.⁹ If you are stuck in that forbearance, switching to IBR, ICR, or PAYE restarts your qualifying payment count.

For federal student loans first disbursed on or after July 1, 2026, the new Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) will be the only income-driven option, and RAP payments qualify for PSLF. IBR and ICR remain accessible for older loans through at least 2028 before being phased out.

Will You Owe Tax on the Forgiven Amount?

PSLF cancellation is permanently excluded from federal taxable income. That protection is in the tax code and does not expire.

The broader tax exclusion for other kinds of forgiven student debt — including income-driven repayment forgiveness — ran from December 31, 2020 through January 1, 2026 under the American Rescue Plan Act.¹⁰ That window has closed. Income-driven forgiveness received on or after January 1, 2026 may be treated as taxable income federally. Teacher Loan Forgiveness sits outside the permanent PSLF exclusion, so a $5,000 or $17,500 cancellation in 2026 or later may also carry a federal tax bill. State treatment varies, so plan the tax hit before the forgiveness lands.

How to Apply

Log in at StudentAid.gov to see which loans you have and who services them. That tells you whether you need to consolidate before you can apply. You will also need your school’s Employer Identification Number, which appears on a W-2 or can be requested from human resources.

For Teacher Loan Forgiveness, confirm your school’s TCLI Directory listing for every year you plan to claim, gather your state certification and any subject-matter test results that support “highly qualified” status, and record exact start and end dates for each academic year of service. Download the current application from the Department of Education or your servicer and submit it directly to the servicer holding your account. If your loans are split across servicers, send a separate application to each. Processing typically takes two to three months, during which your servicer may place your account in administrative forbearance. Keep making scheduled payments while the application is pending.

For PSLF, use the PSLF Help Tool at StudentAid.gov to generate and submit the employment certification form.¹¹ The tool lets you sign digitally, route the form to your employer’s authorizing official for electronic signature, and submit it in one workflow. Certify employment every year rather than waiting until payment 120, so errors surface early and your qualifying payment count keeps updating. When you reach 120 qualifying payments, file the final application through the same tool. If your qualifying payment count looks wrong, you can file a formal reconsideration request through StudentAid.gov.¹²

1
eCFR. 34 CFR 682.216 – Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program
2
Federal Student Aid. Teacher Cancellation Low Income Directory Search
3
eCFR. 34 CFR 685.217 – Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program
4
eCFR. 34 CFR 685.219 – Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program
5
eCFR. 34 CFR 674.53 – Teacher Cancellation — Federal Perkins, NDSL, and Defense Loans
6
Federal Student Aid. Perkins Loans
7
eCFR. 34 CFR Part 686 – TEACH Grant Program
8
Federal Student Aid. TEACH Grant Certification
9
Federal Student Aid. IDR Plan Court Actions – Impact on Borrowers
10
Federal Student Aid. How Will a Student Loan Payment Count Adjustment Affect My Taxes
11
Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness Help Tool
12
Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness Reconsideration